Mont-Real Stories: Faith, Culture & Creator Life
What Reddit Backlash Taught Me About Talking About AI Music Online
In 2024, a Jack Righteous Reddit post about AI music drew immediate hostility. Looking back in 2026, the most useful lesson is not that “people hate AI music” — it is that creators need to understand the community...
A 2024 experience, revisited in 2026
The biggest lesson I took from Reddit backlash was not that people “hate AI music.” It was that having a point of view is not the same as understanding the room you are bringing it into. I still believe AI can expand who gets to create music. I also understand much better now that people can have legitimate concerns about authorship, training data, artistic identity and consent — even when those concerns are delivered badly.
What happened
In September 2024, I posted in the Bandcamp subreddit about protecting the future of AI-assisted music creators. I came in with a large argument and a petition-style message before I had really earned any standing in that community. The response was immediate and often hostile.
Some comments attacked the legitimacy of AI-assisted creators outright. A few examples included statements such as “Just make some damn music yourself” and comparisons between using AI and ordering takeout while calling yourself a chef. Others framed AI creators as thieves rather than musicians or producers.
At the time, my instinct was to focus mainly on the hostility. Looking back, that was incomplete. The delivery was often unnecessary, but underneath some of it were questions that still matter in 2026: What counts as authorship? What rights do creators have to source material? What does a platform train on? What is the human contribution? And how should people describe work created with AI assistance?
The mistake I could control
The clearest mistake was mine: I had not spent enough time understanding the community before asking it to engage with my position. I was trying to start at the conclusion instead of starting with the conversation.
That matters because online communities are not neutral distribution channels. Every group has its own history, assumptions, language and tolerance for certain subjects. A message that is reasonable in one space can feel intrusive or promotional in another. If I had listened longer, asked smaller questions first and learned how members talked about AI, I would have had a much better chance of separating genuine disagreement from a bad introduction.
What I would do differently now
Read enough of the community to understand what people already believe, what they are tired of hearing and what questions are genuinely unresolved.
A focused question produces better information than trying to win the entire AI-music debate in one post.
A rude comment can still contain a useful objection. A polite comment can still be wrong. Evaluate the substance separately from how it was delivered.
“I made this with AI” is often too vague. The clearer you are about writing, prompting, editing, performance, production and decision-making, the more productive the conversation becomes.
The goal is not universal approval. The goal is to understand your audience well enough to communicate your work and your reasoning without wasting energy on every hostile response.
Some of the criticism deserved a better answer
One thing I would not do now is dismiss all anti-AI criticism as simple gatekeeping. There are real issues around consent, commercial rights, source material, disclosure and the way creators describe their role. Those questions deserve careful answers rather than slogans from either side.
If that is the part of the debate you are trying to sort out, my current guide AI Music Creators: Defining Music, Musicianship, and Legal Best Practices separates creative identity, legal obligations and platform disclosure instead of treating them as one argument.
The bigger creator lesson
This experience changed how I think about audience. Your audience is not simply “everyone who likes music,” and it is not automatically the people closest to you or the largest available community. You need to understand who is actually prepared to hear the thing you are trying to say.
That is also why useful feedback has to come from the right people. If you are struggling to tell whether criticism is helping your work or simply reflecting the wrong audience, continue with Why Friends & Family Feedback Can Hurt Your Music.
If your real problem is finding your audience and point of view
The lesson from this Reddit post was not “avoid difficult rooms.” It was to know what you stand for, who you are speaking to and how to communicate it deliberately. That is part of Stage 2 — Mean It / Find Your Voice in the free Jack Righteous Creator Academy.
What I believe now: AI music will keep generating disagreement. Creators do not need to win every argument. We do need to know our contribution, respect legitimate rights concerns, understand the communities we enter and communicate our work with enough precision that people can disagree with what we actually mean.
Continue the wider investigation
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Continue through Tech Culture & Power for connected reporting on infrastructure, ownership and public impact.
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